June 2, 2014

I was just reading Jim Gerahty's column about an conservative gathering in Texas:

Dana Loesch kicked off the festivities by contending that the tea parties are dead, but not in the sense that the gloating media usually does. She suggested the Tea Party’s original form is dead, or ought to be, because they were a catalyst, spurring people to pay much closer attention to local government — sheriff’s races, town and city councils, etc. The fact that the tea parties aren’t in the rallies-and-town-halls mode of 2010 is natural, because a catalyst can’t go on forever. “The Sons of Liberty dumping tea in the harbor wasn’t designed to be a long-lasting movement.”

Ah, the pundits with their HGTV makeover mindset. Sure most groups just throw on a little new paint, stick things up with chewing gum and as to be expected they don't age well because the infrastructure is the same.

Now the Tea Party was really a planning event. People got together and decided on a new building code. Then they left. Some went on to work on foundations before they work on the curb appeal. Others took the code in to mind and heart and use it when they need to do an improvement during routine maintenance.

The thing is, the Tea Party isn't some centrally planned, urban planner wet dream. It is organic with a variety of styles that reflect the builder, the owner and the needs of the street. Yes, sometimes it clashes and on occasion something ugly is erected. But the horrific mistakes are torn down almost as fast as they arise, not due to some central action but because the people don't stand for it. As for the regular but jumbled styles, well they produce character and make the place feel lived in rather than a monument to bureaucratic stupidity as so much of what is built by "grassroots" does.

With so many "information sources" operating on some variation of Windows,Does "fisking " count as defenestration?Oh, wait. A headphone company is worth more to Apple than a "confiscated" Basketball franchise.I guess Fascism is Progressive.

Here is a an example of MSNBC trying to put the last nail in the coffin, but something unfortunate happened.... Keynsianism failed AGAIN! Like it always does. The Tea Party when you boil right down to the basics stood for one primary principle, PAYGO, also known as pay as you go. Ironically, when Obama and Pelosi commandeered both houses in 2006 mid terms, they also ran on PAYGO. The difference is Pelosi and Obama lied.

When Democrats say PAYGO, they mean let's only spend on "good" things like floating trains made out of recyclable wafers and more importantly, let's raise taxes...then we will have balanced budgets. The spending never slows down and the taxes continue to rise and the PAYGO lie is forgotten.

The Tea Party believe in a balanced budget amendment and when asked about the idea in 2010, Obama said, "we don't need an amendment if the government is doings its job", Really? Really?

The key point is, when the MSM asks which side is the radical one, the far left or the Tea Party, the measuring stick is who has moved from the center or the so called mainstream. The Tea Party's primary cause is PAYGO, a supposedly bipartisan concept in 2006, when Obama was getting his Presidential bid going. And Obama, Pelosi and Reid, the Democrat leadership promised PAYGO when they wanted power, then discarded those promises to the people when they gained the power they coveted.

One group remained mainstream and true to its word, the other lied to get in power, then made a radical shift away from the people's interest. That is what is known as radical.

If the Tea Party is Dead, Long Live the Tea Party! ...and Long Live Dutch Reagan!

This has been a rough year for the tea party. I think it's clear that our candidates took a beating in the primaries. Of course, many of the easiest gains had already been made. This time we tried to unseat the Speaker of the House and the minority leader in the senate. These are big fish, and it's no surprise we lost. In NJ, Chris Christie has been working overtime trying to suppress the tea party, so again no surprise that things are uphill there.

More disturbing was the defeat in GA, but the Tea Party simply isn't as strong there. The Establishment is very strong, in part because they've been responsible, pragmatic, and principled. The critiques that have been so successful elsewhere don't really apply as much in states like Georgia. You're far less likely to get a Marco Rubio or Pat Toomey when the establishment isn't pushing Charlie Crists and Arlen Specters.

Finally, in 2014, the establishment finally got its act together in countering us. They've always been successful nationally, but this time they remembered their districts and constituents and played the advantages of incumbency and organization. The riposte has to be to develop institutions of our own... as Dana points out, to work on winning the party, state, and local offices.

The Tea Party movement was alive and well in the Texas Republican primary and runoff. Just about everyone running claimed to be "conservative", but the various local Tea Party groups exposed who was the establishment candidate and who was the limited government candidate. Candidates endorsed by multiple separate local Tea Party groups won while candidates endorsed by newspapers, chamber of commerce, police, etc. lost.

On factor that makes Tea Party groups more powerful in Texas is the need for the establishment candidate to get a majority of the vote, not just the most votes, to win. Doesn't matter if the opposition is split among several candidates so long as they prevent the establishment guy from getting more than 50% of the vote.

The "Tea Party" is just an idea. It is really hard to "kill" ideas as long as people still value them. The grassroots conservatives still "get" the idea behind the "Tea Party" no matter how much the GOP establishment wants them to get behind the larger more intrusive government bandwagon. Call it what you will, attacks on the "Tea Party" idea are simply attacks upon the concept of responsible, and responsive government.

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